Why a President Barack Obama May Not Be Good for Blacks and Other Minorities
© By Professor Amechi Okolo, PhD.
Introduction
Should blacks and minorities be excited because of the prospects of Senator Barack Obama becoming the next President of United States? There is today a strong contention between the two major Democratic Party presidential contenders (Senators Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois) for black votes. Blacks have traditionally voted for the Clintons because of their historical support for black interests. The unexpected candidacy of Senator Obama as a Democratic presidential candidate has therefore upset and jolted black loyalty. Many blacks are now switching from Hillary Clinton to support Barack Obama. The black community is now in a state of flux. The arguments are often intense over whom to support – whether to remain with the Clintons, their traditional ally, or switch to Senator Obama, a black US Senator. This paper is my preliminary effort to enter the debate. Extolling Obama just because he is black is racist politics just when we condemn and rave against racism in the system. Such a position will not help blacks.
As explained, blacks should never vote for someone because he is black just as women should never vote for Hillary Clinton just because she is a woman. It will be a response to the most primitive backward instinct for one to vote purely on the basis of color or gender. I believe that some more important policy interests should drive us to vote. Therefore, for Obama, the most important question is not whether he is black or not but whether he understands the most important issues that confront blacks and other minorities in America. Black alone does not qualify anyone for black support. After all, very few blacks today claim solace because we have black Justice Clarence Thomas at the Supreme Court. We have Colin Powell and Dr. Condoleezza Rice, as top Bush supporters, and I do not know how many blacks have gone rejoicing because of them. So why are blacks wasting their energy talking, debating, arguing whether to support Obama or not because he is black. To me such arguments are diversionary and complete waste of time. The useful arguments should be, which candidate will promote black interests?
My suggestion, therefore is that blacks should list and prioritize their interests and shop them around all the candidates, and then support whoever can deliver most for them. That is what politics is – a bargain game, with no permanent friend, but always looking for how to maximize ones interests. Any approach that is based on the color or the gender of the candidates is childish and stupid.
For me, the U.S. is a fundamentally racist i.e. structurally racist society; and any candidate to support is one that is committed to dismantling structural and institutional racism of the system. The statement that US is fundamentally and structurally racist essentially means two things:
It means that the major socio-political structures and institutions of the system were created in response to the pressing racial/racist issues and demands of the slave society, which it was at the beginning. Therefore, the statement of structural racism as the fundamental essence of American society is a truism, which should not surprise nor be disputed by any American unless one is totally ignorant of American history and/or deliberately pretends otherwise. For example, the nature and number of states created in the country were governed by the consensual demands to ensure equality between "free" and "slave" states. Thus the various compromises of 1820 and 1850, which we celebrate in our public school social studies, and without which the country might have broken apart, ensured the continued existence of the country as one entity. In addition, the bicameral nature of our legislature, the Congress -- The House and the Senate was specially designed to assuage or counterbalance racial fears of the contending states. This was the period when sectionalism – the concept of slave south and the free north, with contending, conflicting interests and demands -- was the mantra of the society. The equality of state representation in the Senate assured the slave-dependent South that the “free” North would not outvote them or pass laws that were inimical to the slave interests of the south -- a condition the south needed for their continued participation in the system.
The second part of the statement about the US being a "fundamentally racist system," is that not only were its major structures created because of slave/racist pressures, the structures today continue to maintain and ensure the continued existence of racism and white supremacy in the system. For example, the Senate, which was created to ensure that the southern slave states were not outvoted in the legislature, has today continued to operate as the primary guardian or the first guard of white supremacy in America. Because of the special powers invested in the Senate, it is the first guard to ensure that anti-racist laws are not passed or the first one to push for pro-racist laws in the system. That the American Senate is the seat and guardian of white supremacy in America is obvious and indisputable by the fact that Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, also a Democratic presidential candidate for the 2008 election, is the only black senator in US Senate -- a fact that few Americans know.
It is important to stress that Senator Barack Obama is the only black Senator in US Senate and that very few Americans know it. For the past decade, I have asked my students how many black senators are there in US Senate, and I am usually lucky to find anyone with the correct answer. There are one hundred senators in the Senate, and when I ask them how many of them are black, usually very few, if any know the answer, which was none until Obama, was elected in November 2004. This means that Obama is a freshman senator, in the third year of his first six-year term. Before Obama, many of my students (or even colleagues at the university) were surprised to find out that there were no black senators in the Senate. Many would normally tell the class that we had ten, fifteen or even twenty senators, only to be shocked to learn that we had none. Even now, that we have the high profile Obama in the Senate very few still know that he is the only black senator. Rather, many think that he is just one of the many black senators in US Senate.
The truth is that Obama is the only black US Senator and that he was elected just barely three years ago in 2004. I am not stressing this to impinge on his experience to be the President of the United States. No. I think that Obama is eminently qualified to be the president. Senatorship is not a necessary qualification to be president. I am only stressing this to note the dart and lack of black US Senators in America. The senate is too important or too powerful to let in blacks and other minorities to participate in on a regular basis because it is the gate through, which all our laws must pass.
A senator is the most important and the most powerful political officer in Washington next to the President. Yet, this very important position is where America bars and denies blacks and other minorities from effective participation. For blacks, non-effective participation in US Senate is akin to “taxation without representation” that provoked America’s rebellion against Britain. The point is that blacks have been historically ruled in America without “effective legislative representation” so long as we are not structurally allowed effective, meaningful and equal participation in US Senate which is the leading legislative body in the country.
The Senate is the most important and the most influential political body in Washington next to the presidency. In fact, in some cases, a single senator might even be more powerful than the president because a single determined senator can stop any law he or she does not like; and can stop any presidential appointment he or she does not like. No other official has that power or influence in Washington, and it was deliberately designed that way by the founding fathers – as demanded by the south – to protect their slave culture. In other words, the unprecedented powers of the senators and the Senate are deliberate appeasements and concessions to the slave south to ensure their continued participation in the Union. This is why I have called the American Senate the guardian of white supremacy in America. In addition, structural racism is why blacks are rarely admitted or elected into that special premier white supremacy club known as, the US Senate. This is because the position of a senator, is so pivotal and influential in America that black senators would be able to redress the structural racism of the system, if they are there. Hence, America may never allow regular black senators in the system. Thus, America allows only occasional, sporadic or accidental black senators like Senator Barack Obama, who occasionally come in, serve one term and leave[1]. I will never consider America a fair, just and equitable society until she is able to produce black senators who serve long tenures like some white senators who often serve twenty to thirty years plus on the average. The long tenures of the white senators allow them to build seniority and thus, garner even more powers and influence in the system.
The first time the US Senate dramatically played its assigned role as the primary guardian of white supremacy in America was in 1846 when the Senate defeated the Wilmot Proviso, after the House passed the bill. Because many northerners feared that the South would extend slavery to the West and to the land concessions from Mexico after the Mexican War, northerners urged David Wilmot, a Democratic Congressman from Pennsylvania to attach a proviso to the $2 million budget request, which President Polk had requested to negotiate what he called, “a just settlement” of the Mexican War. Congress knew that President Polk would insist on cession of some lands as part of his “just settlement”. So the northerners wanting to ensure that the South did not extend slavery to the West and to any lands received from Mexico attached the Wilmot Proviso to the President’s request, which banned slavery from the West and from any lands won from Mexico.
Southern leaders angrily opposed the Wilmot Proviso. They said that Congress had no right to ban slavery in the western territories. In 1846, the House passed the Wilmot Proviso, but the Senate defeated it. As a result, Americans continued to argue about slavery in the West even while their army fought in Mexico.[2]
The occasional one-tenure black US senators have minimal powers and influence in the Senate just as daily-paid substitute teachers have in US public schools, or adjunct professors have in US colleges and universities or temp workers have in workplaces across America. The fundamental import of tenureship anywhere is to foster respect and collegiality in the workplace – a necessary condition for maximal output. Temporary workers, under any name or guise – black US senators, substitute teachers in public schools, adjunct professors in colleges and universities or temp workers in workplaces – have minimal respect from colleagues and the bosses, and their works are least recognized and/or rewarded. More importantly, blacks and other minorities are often stuck in such indignities more than whites because of the structural racism of the system. If blacks are occasionally elected US Senators to serve one-term, how can they ever become committee chairs, etc. They will always be junior and freshmen senators because of their newness.
The point I am making is that Barack Obama is a great individual. I like him a lot. He speaks well and has great charisma. He is very hard-working and intelligent; and I like and applaud the very high waves he is currently making as a Democratic presidential candidate. My problem though, is that a black president could do little to dismantle America’s entrenched structures of racism, which is deeply rooted in the US Senate.
The Most Important Tasks for Obama Now! For me, the most urgent tasks for Obama now are:
1. To ensure that he is re-elected in 2010 to a second six-year term, thus breaking the curse of one-term black US senators. Edward Brooke of Massachusetts was the first and only US black Senator to have a second term from 1967 to 1979. Carol Moseley Braun served only one term from 1993 to 1999. Obama’s task therefore, is to break the curse by getting another term in 2010 and many more terms thereafter. I will hate to see him become a one-term US black senator like the few US black senators before him.
2. His next other very important task is to break the mode of occasional lone black senatorship in US Senate. The American Senate deserves, at least, twelve black senators at any time. Any number short of that is unfair, unjust and racist. Since Bush and the Republicans have been talking about Iraqi benchmarks to know that Iraq is moving towards democracy, my own benchmarks to know that American is moving towards democracy is the presence of, at least ten black senators in US Senate – otherwise US is a hypocritical, unfair, unjust, undemocratic system -- irrespective of how loudly we shout about democracy. This means that Obama must be worried about himself being the lone US black Senator and work for structural changes to redress the shameful situation. He needs other black senators and minority senators to work with him.
3. Presently, changing the senatorial racist equation is not in Obama’s agenda. It is neither mentioned nor discussed in his presidential campaign speeches; and it is not part of the concerns of the other presidential candidates, which is understandable because of the fundamental institutional racism of the system. The other white candidates would not mention it because it will not get them their white votes which they need to win. Therefore, the only way for Obama to win is by not mentioning the racist structures of the US Senate so that he can get the white votes to win.
4. Thus, the fundamental contradiction of Obama’s candidacy is that he must not raise the core issues that are dear to him to be elected by “his supporters.” It is a tragedy that one is forced to commit political suicide to be elected to a political office. Obama’s tragedy is also the tragedy of America, and it is a tragedy that produces what the Nigerian music icon Fela Ransome-Kuti, called, “smiling and suffering.” This is because for him to win, “his supporters” expect him to keep showing his teeth, to be smiling, never to mention his real problems so that he will become their consummate “post-racial” politician. This is an impossible position because either he is a comic or he is a fool and a jester because any black politician who does not talk about the very serious issues of structural racism is simply not serious.
5. Good politics is always a game of negotiations and compromises and never a game of hiding, fakes and pretenses. For example, Mike Huckabee’s base is the conservative right, which he does not hide. He goes after them and promises what they want – constitutional amendment for abortion and others. John McCain, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani are war hawks who boldly promise their base what they want – continued warfare and global destruction.
6. As a black, Obama takes black as his base. The question, therefore is what is Obama promising blacks who are his primary base? The answer is nothing because he is too scared to mention them, otherwise whites will not vote for him. My point is that if whites truly love Obama, they should also love and understand his interests and vote him in based on those known and acknowledged interests just like the other candidates. This is why Obama’s candidacy must be different. He must raise problems that are unique to blacks and other minorities, otherwise he is irrelevant to blacks. He talks about change, which is great, and changing the racist structure of the American Senate, is the ideal place to start the real change in America.
7. A black president who does not talk of structural changes in America starting with the racist structure of the senate is useless to blacks and minorities. Such a president would be merely cosmetic who could actually be doing a big favor to white America. Some whites would actually love such a black president because it will help clean and sanitize America’s battered world image abroad after Bush’s global atrocities without changing the lots of American blacks and minorities. In other words, the possibility of electing a black president is for foreign consumption with little to do with blacks and minorities in America unless followed with rigorous discussions and policy proposals for structural changes in the system.
8. Therefore, whites who are now pushing for Obama must also commit to fundamental structural changes in the system to allow for a minimum of ten black senators and other minority senators to reflect America’s ethno-cultural diversities otherwise, they are just routing for their self-emulation and not out of genuine concerns for fairness, equity and social-justice.
Therefore, without detracting from any of Barack Obama's exceptional and sterling qualities, it must be acknowledged that his Senatorship is fundamentally accidental. In addition to Obama's uniqueness, he won the Illinois US Senate election because of the self-implosion of his white Republican opponent who got into a nasty self-destructive sexual scandal with his ex-wife -- a fight that forced him to withdraw, after which the Republicans were not able to recruit a credible opponent. Thus, if the Republican candidate had not shot himself in the foot, which forced the Republicans to import another black, Alan Keyes, for Maryland, we might not have Senator Obama today.
The point I am making is that Obama's fortunes and prospects do not demonstrate that US is no longer structurally racist. It only shows that given the right moments, the right, unique and exceptional individuals might produce exceptional, unique results, which do not necessarily disprove or contradict or change the structural racism of the system. Like I said, American structures ensure and maintain white supremacy in the system of which the Senate is primary. And until we have ten-to-twelve regular black senators anytime in US Senate, (because blacks constitute about 12% of the population), the system is structurally racist, unfair and unjust no matter how loudly we shout about democracy.
It is interesting to note that the system might be willing to vote in a black president because it is good for cosmetics, it is a one-time event and does not involve any structural changes, and therefore will not alter the racist structure of the system. The real important fight in America -- a struggle I predict many Americans will resist, and which I predict will eventually be won, because it is a just fight, is the struggle to ensure that the American Senate represents the ethno-cultural diversity of America. That is the struggle that will be more important and useful to the blacks, to minorities and to America regarding equity and social justice than the election of black Obama to the presidency, as historic as it might be. This means that currently, all the important socio-political institutions of the country are designed to ensure the existence and maintenance of white supremacy in the system. The destruction of that structure is more important now. I do not see how the possible election of a black president who has not even talked publicly about the horrible racist structure can begin to help blacks and other minorities out of their quagmire that is America.
Finally, the first serious task of Obama, therefore is to get America to open up serious, open and honest dialogue and discussions about the prevailing and daunting structural racism in America so that we can begin to solve it. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and the other serious civil rights leaders did not dance around our social inequity, which was why they made any progress. If Obama is talking changes today, he must be talking about real changes like dismantling the structures that make him the lone black US Senator, and may possibly make him a one-term senator while his other less intelligent and less hard-working white senators could remain Senators till they die. America needs many black and other minority US senators. It is good for equity, fairness and social justice. More importantly, an ethno-culturally diverse US Senate is right and necessary because it represents real America which is ethno-culturally diverse. The present US Senate which is lily white is reminiscence of old slave America. This is twenty-first century and America can do better than just keep replicating the old slave structure, which is simply what the current US Senate is. If Obama’s presidential candidacy cannot even raise and discuss the anomaly of the US Senate as the dominant shameful racist, archaic structure, and his possible presidency cannot redress that, what use is he then to us as blacks and minorities; and as Americans who need solutions to our serious problems?
[1] There have been only five black US Senators in all of US history, viz.: two from Mississippi (Hiram Revels in 1870 and Blanche Bruce in 1874 during the Reconstruction; Edward Brooke from Massachusetts in 1966; Carol Moseley Braun from Illinois in 1992 and Barack Obama from Illinois in 2004. Hence, that Obama is the lone US black senator is a fact that will surprise the world and must shame the many true, decent, fair and honest Americans.
[2] James West Davidson, et al, The American Nation, Upper Saddle River, NJ, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 2000), pp. 424-425.
